“Yes, what is it?” Yazzie snapped, glancing at the bedside clock that read six-twenty, more than four hours later than when he’d looked at it last.
“I’m sorry to bother you, Ben,” Chief Shirley said on the other end of the line, “but there’s been a murder in Chinle. It’s Councilman Hoskie. There’s a very good chance that Councilman Kinlichee’s death may not have been from natural causes after all.”
Yazzie, his tired brain refusing to process what Shirley was saying, simply stared dumbly at the phone.
“Ben, listen to me,” Shirley said sharply, penetrating Yazzie’s foggy brain. “Rick Hoskie has been murdered. A couple of Frank’s boys should be pulling up in your driveway any minute. They are going to drive you over here to the crime scene. You really need to see this as we found it.”
Another member of the council — another good friend — gone in the space of a few brief hours, Yazzie thought bitterly. He heard a car pulling up outside, the headlights casting slices of light onto the bedroom walls. Yazzie parted the curtains and looked out the window in time to see a pair of men exiting an EPS vehicle.
“How, Terry?” he asked as he watched the men approach the front door. “What happened?”
“Not now Ben, not over the phone,” Shirley replied. “We’ll talk when you get here.”
Numb, Yazzie hung up the phone and quickly dressed before opening the door for the EPS officers. The two men were both in their 20s and looked fit enough to single-handedly dispatch a riot. Both men’s’ eyes swept the room as they entered with an air about them that spoke of hoping for an excuse to flex their muscles; each had one hand on their sidearm.
No, this isn’t going to be a good day at all. “Okay boys,” Yazzie said, suddenly feeling twice his age. “Get me over to Hoskie’s place.”
It was early enough that they encountered little traffic during the fifty mile drive, the flashing lights taking care of the occasional car or truck that got in the way on the two-lane highway. Fortunately they didn’t encounter a large flock of sheep crossing their path along the way either. It happened every once in a while, a car coming over a hill at sixty miles an hour, helpless to do anything else, would plow into the flock just standing on the road. It was never a pretty sight.
Not that it was much worse than the site awaiting him as he arrived at Hoskie’s horse ranch just outside of Chinle, but that brought Yazzie little respite from thoughts of death. Several Navajo Nation Police Department cars were scattered all around the ranch. The lone criminalist van in the NNPD fleet was parked near the house, its rear doors wide open. The evidence collected at the scene, along with Hoskie’s body, would make the trek back to Window Rock in that vehicle.
So far, mercifully, there was no sign of any press vehicles from the Navajo Herald or the Gallup Times. That would likely not last much longer, then the TV crews from both Gallup and Flagstaff would be close behind.
Even as the car was coming to a stop, Yazzie was opening the door to get out. Shirley, a big burly man with a pock-marked face below closely cropped hair, quickly stepped out of the house and barred the President’s path to the door.
“I know the two of you were good friends,” Shirley began without preamble. “So before you go in there you need to know he’s been cut up pretty bad. Cause of death is a single stab wound to the heart, but it looks like Rick’s killer carved several symbols on his face and arms before the fatal blow was struck.”
“When?” Yazzie asked softly.
“Sometime after noon yesterday,” Shirley replied, stepping aside to let Yazzie enter the house. “When Martin turned up missing, we started doing welfare checks on all of the council members. One of my officers found Rick about midnight after I authorized her to break into the house when we couldn’t locate him anywhere else.”
Yazzie stepped through the threshold and into the living room where Rick’s body lay covered by a white sheet. Aside from the body and the presence of the police officers, the room looked neat and clean.
“You said Rick had been cut before he was killed,” Yazzie asked. “Was he killed here in the room?”
“It appears so,” Shirley responded, knowing where Yazzie’s line of reasoning was going. “So why does a man in pretty good shape allow himself to get carved up without putting up enough of a struggle to leave a mess, unless the killer took the time to straighten up before he left, or if he’d somehow drugged Rick before starting in on him. We won’t know for sure until the tests are run.”
“You said you thought Martin’s death was suspicious now. That it wasn’t just a heart attack. Why?”
“There was a note on top of Rick’s desk, we found it a few minutes before I called you,” Shirley said. “It’s written in Navajo; claims that the writer, who didn’t bother to identify himself for us, killed Martin too. Frank is over at the hospital checking to see if there is anything to it. The killer is also claiming there will be more deaths, including yours, but first he’s going to go after people close to you.”
“Beth…”
“Is fine and so is Anna,” Shirley said quickly. “Frank has a pair of men keeping an eye on them both. Another team is sitting at your place right now to make sure no one shows up there that doesn’t belong. We’ve got people covering your staff and the rest of the administration, too. We’re going to make damn sure this guy doesn’t get a clean shot at anyone else if we can help it.”
Shirley handed over a sealed evidence bag with the note inside. Yazzie read the rambling missive, which clearly painted a bulls-eye right on Yazzie’s back.
“We’re checking out Tolchini, but it doesn’t feel like his style,” Shirley said. “You got any ideas on who it is or who might be next on his list?”
Yazzie shook his head. Martin had been his mentor; they’d been close for years. Rick had been a friend, but not a particularly close one. They shared a business interest and similar views on the future for their people; they could hardly be called close companions. It just didn’t make any sense.
“Can I see him?” Yazzie asked, inclining his head toward the body.
Shirley carefully stepped over and pulled back the sheet. Rick’s face was strangely serene, a stark contrast to the atrocity that had been committed on it. Despite the dried blood, Yazzie could make out the symbols of the coyote and the owl, each on a separate cheek, and the sign of death on his forehead. Two symbols, one carved over the other just above the heart wound, caught Yazzie’s attention. A pair of arrows, flying in opposite directions, had been carved over a thunderbird. The arrows were the symbol for war and the thunderbird, while a symbol for a good omen, was also the symbol for something a little more closer to home for Yazzie.
The arrows over a thunderbird was something he’d just seen a few hours ago on Martin’s chest as he lay in the intensive care bed. It had looked like a tattoo of some sort. He’d thought it odd for Martin to have chosen those images for a tattoo, but what if Martin hadn’t had anything to do with that tattoo?
A bolt of fear shot through Yazzie as he realized he might just know who was next on the killer’s list even as he hoped he was wrong.
“James Runningelk,” Yazzie blurted out. “Have you been looking for him since yesterday?”
“He was in Window Rock most of the day,” Shirley replied. “He was still there when we started our welfare checks on the council last night.”
“How about right now?” Yazzie demanded. “Do you know where he is right now?”
Shirley stared at Yazzie for a second before whipping out his radio — cell phone coverage was still too spotty on the reservation to be trusted — and flipped to the EPS frequency.
“Frank, this is Shirley,” he barked into the radio. “We need an immediate location for Councilman Runningelk. Get someone on him now.”
Shirley waited for Tso to acknowledge before shooting a hard look at Yazzie.
“You want to tell me why Runningelk?”
No, Terry, Yazzie thought bitterly to himself, I’d really rather
not. I’d rather hope and pray that Tso finds James in time or that I am very, very wrong.
Yazzie took one last look at the wounds on Rick’s face before gently draping the sheet back over the body. He knew there was little reason to hope.
SIX
James Runningelk would have agreed with Yazzie if he’d been aware of the other man’s thoughts. The one thing that he did know was that he had likely seen his last sunrise this day. Despite this surety, he still ran for his life with all he was worth and prayed for a miracle to save him. He prayed that he could reach the only place of possible safety that lay within miles of his home. He prayed because, despite the terror that grasped him so firmly, he knew divine intervention might be his only hope for salvation.
Until that intervention presented itself, he would have to rely on his legs; they had seldom let him down before. His mother had aptly named her only child. Seeing a herd of elk running across open land on the Navajo Reservation shortly after his birth, she had chosen to honor the spirit of those majestic animals when giving him his name. It was an old Navajo tradition for the mother to choose the name of a child based on something seen after birth, even though it was not always used by every Navajo mother these days.
Either her choice was prophetic, or it had imbued her son with the qualities she had seen in those elk that day. James had grown up to be a strong runner, speedy at the shorter distances, but with more than enough endurance to run for longer distances too. He had led the Window Rock Scouts to the state high school cross-country title four consecutive years in Arizona and had parlayed that into a full scholarship at Northern Arizona University.
With his bachelor’s degree firmly in hand, James hadn’t run away from the reservation as many others had before. He’d run back to it without a second thought or regret. He came back to coach the track and cross-country teams at Window Rock High; to try to inspire others to take the path he’d taken; to help improve the quality of life and the future for the children who he hoped would follow in his footsteps.
He was a good-looking man with the kind of face that ensured he would never lack for female companionship, and his athletic background kept him in prime physical condition. He was considered by many to be the most eligible bachelor on the reservation.
Upon his return from school he’d been recruited to run for the tribal council by Martin Kinlichee, and had quickly found a like-minded friend in Ben Yazzie. Just the day before, James had looked toward the future and very much liked the path that he saw ahead.
Now Martin was dead and James could feel death closing in on him, too, after his narrow escape just an hour before.
He had awoken an hour after sunrise from a fitful sleep and staggered into his living room to find himself face to face with an apparition — seemingly half-coyote, half man — that left him wondering if he was still asleep and dreaming.
A flash of movement from a claw or a sharp blade, the stinging bite of pain in his left bicep and the flow of blood from the cut convinced James that this was no dream state. In a blind panic he hurled himself out of an open window and sprinted away from his home as fast as he could; barefoot, clad only in a t-shirt and boxers.
His first clear thought was to get to Yazzie’s home just three miles to the west of his, and he was halfway there when he reconsidered his intended destination. Not quite sure of what he had just seen or what was probably even now pursuing him, but all too certain of its malicious intent, he did not want to bring this evil to his friend’s doorstep. Turning towards the south instead, James decided his best chance of survival lay in making it to the Hogan of Old Roanhorse. If any person on the reservation would know a way to defend against a creature like this it would be that old medicine man. It would mean a much longer run for him, but James knew he could make it just so long as he stayed ahead of his pursuer.
Drenched in sweat, Runningelk’s legs powered him through the trees up and down the red hills that he knew so well until up ahead he saw the top of the hill he knew overlooked Roanhorse’s Hogan. The medicine man’s home was proof against all of the evil spirits and hopefully could handle any half-man, half-animal creatures that walked the earth as well. As Runningelk topped the hill, his legs suddenly betrayed him. He skidded to a sudden halt as he looked down and did not see the round dwelling with a cone-shaped top that was the traditional Navajo Hogan he’d fully expected to see.
What he saw before him instead was the few scattered homes and the run down gas station that marked the whole of Yah-Ta-Hey, far too many miles to the east of where he should have been. In stunned disbelief he realized that he was no longer on the Navajo reservation, he wasn’t even in the same state anymore. Impossible, his mind cried out, yet he knew Yah-Ta-Hey all too well. A little town that lay between Window Rock and Gallup was located in New Mexico just off the small slice of reservation land that extended into that state.
There simply was no way in the time since he’d been attacked in his home, his mind cried out in disbelief, that he could have possibly covered over forty miles on foot. He knew the reservation far too well to have run east instead of south. He simply could not accept what he was seeing. Worse still, he had stopped running. By the time he had decided to go ahead and run toward the gas station below, he had hesitated far too long. The snapping of a twig from directly behind him announced that his time, his hope, had run out. Ever so slowly James Runningelk turned to face his ultimate fate.
***
The western lands of the United States have always been harsh on its inhabitants no matter the species that roamed them. As had been the case in all of the centuries before, death was a harsh reality in the desert Southwest with little sympathy shown for the recently departed. Vultures seldom wasted any time when a fresh victim was served up. There was rarely a day that passed in the region when you wouldn’t see two or three of the flying scavengers circling their next meal.
So when Deputy Sheriff Bobby Maclin spotted at least a dozen of the carrion eaters circling an area just a few hundred yards off Highway 491 he figured they’d found a pretty large prize. Stepping out of his cruiser, Maclin picked his way through the brush and debris typical of an old highway roadside. In four years with the McKinley County Sheriff’s Department he’d seen a grouping this large only five times before and they had all been for the body of a human being.
“Make that six now,” Maclin said aloud as he came across the body of a young Native American male. Sadly, finding dead Navajo men was not an unusual occurrence for the sheriff’s department, or for the Gallup Police Department, or even the NNPD for that matter. Young and old alike, too many over the years had simply never made it back to the reservation after visiting Gallup — for booze in most every case. It had been getting better over the past few years as the departments and other local organizations developed programs to try to curb the drinking and the related deaths. No matter, they still came across dead bodies, usually of older men, but sometimes a younger one, from time to time despite their best efforts, in Gallup or somewhere along the roads that led into the reservation.
That was usually in the colder months, and Maclin had never heard of one being found stripped down to his underwear and in his bare feet before.
Stepping closer, Maclin saw the stab wound that had killed the man, the bloodied, bare feet and the cuts on the arm and face, and knew there was nothing ordinary about this body, and that alcohol had probably nothing to do with this death. A quick search found no ID on the unfortunate man, so there was little else to do but call it in and let the department’s homicide detectives take it from here.
****
With the call already out to find James Runningelk, who seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth itself, NNPD’s dispatch overheard Maclin’s call-in of a young dead Navajo to his own dispatch in Gallup and knew that it was an automatic call to send an NNPD officer out to the scene.
Lucy Chee had gone to school with Runningelk both at Window Rock High and Northern Arizona. She, too, had returned t
o her home land after school; decided to join the department to do her part to make life on the reservation better. She had been the first to find Hoskie’s mutilated body and had returned to headquarters with some of the evidence from the scene. When Maclin’s call had come over, she quickly drove over to the scene, hating the fact that in hoping it wasn’t James, she was instead hoping that it had been some other family that had lost a son this day instead.
She beat Maclin’s backup from Gallup to the scene by mere minutes; needing just one glance to confirm the worst. They had found James Runningelk too late. Tearing her eyes away from the same horrific violence that had been done to Hoskie, she stepped away and called in the information back to Window Rock to be relayed to Yazzie. Then she, like Maclin, could do nothing more but stand watch over the body and keep the vultures at bay.
By the time Yazzie arrived on the scene with his EPS protection staying glued to his side, the McKinley County coroner and several sheriffs’ patrol cars had already arrived. So had the reporters from the various press outlets who had finally caught wind that three members of the tribal council had died under suspicious circumstances in less than the span of a single day.
Yazzie was only a handful of years older than Chee, but he looked old and worn out as if the events of the last twenty hours had aged him a full half a century. She supposed three dead friends in such a small time frame would do that to anyone. She herself had lost two mentors in Kinlichee and Runningelk, and did not doubt for a moment that her pain was just as visible as well. Yazzie ignored the shouted questions from the group of reporters and photographers, who had been contained in an area well away from the crime scene, and slowly walked toward the covered body.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Chee said softly as he passed. A slight nod, a light touch of his hand on her shoulder was all the reply he could muster before continuing on. After making sure he could approach, Yazzie knelt down and slightly drew back the sheet. The same marks were there that had been on Rick. These too had been done while James’ heart was still beating, judging by the drying blood in the marks. He gently placed the sheet back and stepped away, trying not to overhear the others as they tried to figure out the why — and how — James had ended up out here.
Jack Del Rio: Complete Trilogy: Reservations, Betrayals, Endgames Page 3